Moving On
by spazmoid
Summary: <html><head></head>Then again, when Kyle turnt around and out the door, he still felt as if nothing had been accomplished. Nothing at all.</html>


_"wish i could let you know how much i miss you_

_entertain the pain_

_if i could i would kiss you"_

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><p>Craig put the last book on the shelf. He fumbled with it in his uncaring, sending it crashing to the ground. He had no idea what to do for a few moments. He just stared down at it before leaning down on one knee and picking it up. As he gathered the book and made sure the pages were not bent at the corners, he noticed a picture on the ground next to it. He hesitated before picking it up. It must have been used as a bookmark when he had first started the novel. It was a photograph capturing him and a familiar redhead in a happier memory amongst others in a photobooth. A silly thing really. It w as so silly that his mind was erased of the thoughts telling him that he had yet to finish the book. His mind was filled with the taste of chosen-to-be forgotten memories.<p>

_i"C'mon Craig! It won't be too bad! Stop fighting against it!" Kyle yelled drawing attention to the arguing pair. Minutes were hours as they bantered about the photobooth. Craig was mostly the problem. He did not like photgraphs and did not desire to do it. Also, he thought things like this were so petty and for lovey dovey couples or best friends. Craig and Kyle were neithre of those. They were caught somewhere inbetween in a little strip of grey. That was why after fifteen minutes of them going back-and-forth Craig still refused to budge from his resolution. He could care less that Kyle thought this made up an essential part of amusement park experience. All he cared for was his loathing of being in front of a camera._

_"It'll be awful. I won't even smile," Craig said with a roll of his eyes showing his distaste in words and actions. This rolling of the eyes and tone of voice were used often by him. It became an especially bad habit when dealing with the teenager in front of him. If he was badly short-tempered, Kyle had a definite problem. Kyle always found something to fuss over, and now was no different. It was worse that Kyle always seemed to get his way. Kyle tugged an unwillful arm toward the cursed photobooth, surprisingly strong when Craig's heels had firmly been planted in the ground._

_Somehow, Craig had been talked inside. He told himself he was not giving in, but that smile of Kyle's was always a reward he would never admit he throughly enjoyed. His heart raced despite the slight frown on his face. He refused to let Kyle get to him. He refused to acknowledge the arm that wrapped around his shoulders or the comment to smile. Instead, Craig bit back the urge to compel with a ridiculous face. A sticking out of his tongue in playful stubborness. Craig continued to do this throughout the entire shoot. His face had reached its normal nonchalance when the flashes stopped._

_Kyle still held onto a smile that quite contradicted Craig's indifference as he dragged them out of the seats and past the curtain. He walked with a step that resembled childish excitement as he took the pictures from their place in the tray. He stared at them quietly for a few moments. Then, silence gave way to laughter. Craig was throughly surprised. He had expected anger rather than this bubbling happiness. He messed up everything, including the pictures. He had accepted his perfection at imperfection as a a fact of life. His mind was driven blank as the laugh died to stifled chuckles. He could not explain that sudden foreign feeling in his chest, his heart beating so fast it threatened to rip like the pictures. The four becoming two each for the pair as Kyle handed Craig his half with a smile still on his face. "You have more personality than you let on," Kyle said warmly. The warmth somehow worming itself into a place in Craig's chest he did not want to admit. Not then or ever./i_

The memory was warm but bitter in Craig's mind. The feeling that came was as unexpected as the laugh had been in the past. He held the picture in his hand before crumpling it in a fist. He walked in a quick pace to a nearby trashcan and tossed it in without a care for shutting the lid. The quick footsteps carried him there and to his desk. He picked up his pen and let it rest on his notepad. The thesis statement he was working on left in an unfinished paragraph due to thoughts that were not seeming to flow. They were jumbled by a roage mind that kept carrying him to things he had rather kept buried.

_iDisbelief was a feeling Craig was foreign to. It was as foreign as the other feelings that wormed themselves throughout his entire body. It was as unbelievable as the words that were being spoken to him coming from lips he had unconsciously thought were so very sweet. These words were bitter, the face uttering them not meeting his eyes. "I'm really sorry Craig... Thank you for doing this for me, but I... I can't pretend any longer." Craig choked down the words that lept up his throat right then. Words that said something along the lines of he had not been pretending for such a long time. The words burned like tears Craig hid behind an impassive face. There was an urge to scream or cry, but Craig was Craig. Craig Motherfucking Tucker to be exact, and he would never allow Kyle Broflovski the honour of seeing him cry._

_"He told you he liked you didn't he?" Craig asked his monotone telling apathy he did not feel. His stomach had been thrown into knots at the words he forced past his lips. The fact of the situation becoming a painful pill of reality he did not want to swallow. The knots his stomach was in having been there ever since Kyle had said that dreadful "sorry." The apology not bringing the nausea, but the statement he said with his own lips doing it instead. Bile was building in his throat. Craig could feel it. He did not want to say to himself it might have just been him choking on his own heart and the words he wanted to scream so very badly._

_When Kyle nodded to Craig's question, Craig felt a pang of gratefulness he could hardly acknowledge. He was grateful Kyle could not see his barriers breaking down to show all the insecurities and fears. Craig Tucker was bare, and he wanted to tell Kyle that he had been waiting for the moment when Kyle would see that Craig thought of their time together as more than "just rebound dates." He did not want that wish to shatter amongst utters like falling stars. This "I'm sorry Craig" was a nightmare Craig had pushed back until it came to light and was reality._

_That burn and itch behind his eyes was the least of his worries as he hurriedly rebuilt a wall of apathy. An apathy he built to cover up all the emotions storming through him right then. "I don't care," he said in a hollow, cold monotone. The statement was made more to himself than to Kyle. The words pouring out continuingly to remind him that he needed to wear the mask as a fact rather than a poor imitation of indifference. "I really could fucking care less about you Kyle." The lies seemed to do what they intended. Kyle whipped up his head as Craig sucked down an essential organ he kept buried in secrets and other things. There was a wounded look in emerald eyes that Craig found himself happy for in a sadistic manner. He hoped the pain Kyle felt was greater than his aching, shattering belief in love. He hoped that the hurt would blind Kyle from seeing his own._

_Then, when Kyle turnt around and out the door, he still felt as if nothing had been accomplished. Nothing at all._

Frustration built up and hands moved in collaboration with irritated fingers as Craig forced his papers and pen to the floor. The desk was now clear in a striking contradiction to his mind. He told himself that remembering was a thing he never needed to do. He continued to stare at the desk and brought fingers to his temples, the nails of them digging into his skin as he tried to rebury the memories. It would be better to erase them, but they refused to die. Swallowing regrets that brought him to wooden legs, he returnt to the garbage can. His fingers dug up the picture he had tossed amidst rejected ideas for thesises and essays. It was not the him he acted to be that straightened the corners with shakey hands. Right then, Craig wanted to pretend. He wanted to pretend that he was not an apathetic fuckup void of all emotions. He could pretend to be that caring guy that Kyle always wanted and found but not in him.

And that was when Craig allowed himself to cry tears he told himself were pretend. Tears that brought on a choking sob as words he had held in began to pour from his lips and to an empty room.

No one was there to care, and the one person Craig had wanted had moved on just like Craig only pretended to do.

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><p><em>"spend the night alone again<em>

_waste the air you're breathing in_

_close the curtains and lock the door_

_hide from what you're waiting for"_


End file.
